The Presidents of the Big East Catholic 7 – St. John's, DePaul, Providence, Marquette, Villanova, Seton Hall and Georgetown – who announced last month that they were splitting from their football brethren, will meet as a group Friday in New York in the first of many steps towards forming a 10- or 12-team basketball conference, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

Although no major expansion plans are expected to be announced, the group is expected to announce that it has reached an agreement with the remaining Big East schools to leave the league a year earlier than originally stated, with a start-up date of July 1, 2014, rather than July 1, 2015.

They will also more than likely pick a spokesman that will make all announcments/press releases for the group. Once they announce the starting dates you can quickly expect invitations to be formally issued, even though at least two teams have already been informally offered and accepted.

The Big East is going to be sitting on a boatload of cash soon, given all of the exit fees that have been paid. Plus there is the issue of the credits for the NCAA basketball tournament. No matter how you slice it, the remaining schools of the Big East are unlikely to change their minds, a la Boise State and possibly San Diego State. After East Carolina decides to become a full blown member, they would be close to having 12 full members. (all of this moving around is very confusing.) Remember, CUSA could still be cherry picked, with Tulsa being the next one in. And possibly Southern Miss. or UTEP.

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The Big East is going to be sitting on a boatload of cash soon, given all of the exit fees that have been paid. Plus there is the issue of the credits for the NCAA basketball tournament. No matter how you slice it, the remaining schools of the Big East are unlikely to change their minds, a la Boise State and possibly San Diego State. After East Carolina decides to become a full blown member, they would be close to having 12 full members. (all of this moving around is very confusing.) Remember, CUSA could still be cherry picked, with Tulsa being the next one in. And possibly Southern Miss. or UTEP.

I agree with you as long as UC and UCONN don't get an invite somewhere else before then. If they get an invite, they will get together with the basketball schools and just disband the league before any other school has voting rights so they don't have to pay an exit fee.

Looked over the Boise State MWC Term Sheet and especially provision 5e. Where SDSU has first rights to the MWC that expire on Jan 31. Should see some action by month end.

The Big East, non C7 teams, will have a more Big East Coast tilt. Nothing about politics or conference realignment seems reasonable, so this will probably NOT happen. The C7 teams get MSG and the teams that did not leave the Big East, keep the Big East name. Would think those two things will have some effect on TV/media negotiations.